DAVID Andrews launches his regular column for tourism businesses in York and North Yorkshire at a moment of triumph.

His Yorkshire Tourist Board (YTB) in York has become one of the first organisations in the UK to achieve the new Customer First standard.

The new quality accolade, piloted in Yorkshire and London, was devised by key funders and providers of publicly funded business support agencies, including the Government Office for Yorkshire and the Humber, the region's four Business Links, Yorkshire Forward and the Small Business Service.

The 40 professionals at Yorkshire Tourist Board took two months to add the Customer First standard to their Investors In People accreditation which they achieved in 1998.

Mr Andrews says: "Tourism, which brought more than £4 billion worth of spending to Yorkshire last year, is the region's biggest single revenue generator and job creator and we are determined to ensure that YTB's customers - who range from owners and operators of businesses to the tourists themselves, are properly, accurately, efficiently and courteously served.

"As an industry, tourism in Yorkshire is bigger than farming and construction, and is vital to the financial well-being of the county, because it supports approximately 165,000 jobs across the region and represents between seven and eight per cent of regional gross domestic product."

Customer First had provided him with another independent, external and objective way of measuring his organisation's performance.

YTB, which has 2,800 members, ranging in size from bed and breakfast proprietors, to operators of the region's top heritage and visitor attractions, has won many plaudits for the way in which it has kept the unique Yorkshire brand firmly in the limelight - particularly in the aftermath of foot and mouth, BSE, flooding and September 11.

Updated: 09:25 Tuesday, March 25, 2003